domains-api 0.1.4

Auto-updates your dynamic dns rules on Google Domains (domains.google.com)

Google Domains API Client

To facilitate running a home web server behind a router without a static IP, this package checks to see if external IP has changed and updates dynamic DNS rules on Google Domains, via the API; also notifies user by email if required.

Installation:

pip3 install domains-api (or pip [windows])

Usage:

Can be run from the command line like so:

python3 -m domains_api (or python [windows])

or imported into your projects in the normal way*:

>>>from domains_api import IPChanger
>>>ipchanger = IPChanger()
>>>ipchanger.user.domain
example.com

Windows/Mac or Linux, it will ask for your credentials on first run and then shouldn't need any input after that. I added command line options/arguments (see python3 domains_api --help) for loading/deleting a profile and changing credentials/settings more easily.

You will need your Dynamic DNS autogenerated username and password as described in this documentation. For more info on how to set up Dynamic DNS and the process I went through writing this script check this blog post.

If you choose to receive email notifications, you will be asked to input your gmail email address and password which will then be encoded before being saved as part of a User instance. (The notification is sent from the user's own email address via the gmail smtp server, you will need to allow less secure apps on your Google account to use.).

On Windows you can use Task Scheduler; on Linux/Mac, add a line to your crontab and you can choose the frequency of the checks. My hourly cron job looks like this:

0 * * * * python3 -m domains_api >> ~/cron.log 2>&1

If reducing downtime is essential, you could increase the frequency of checks to every 5 minutes, or even less, like this:

*/5 * * * * ...etc

On Google Domains the default TTL for Dynamic DNS is 1 min, but unless you expect your external IP to change very frequently, more regular cron jobs might be a slight waste of resources; even so, the script is very light weight and only takes a single second to run normally on a Rasberry Pi 3 Ubuntu server.

Check ~/cron.log if the script does not run as expected, or to see when the IP was last checked.

The logs are written to both /domains-api.log in lib dir or LOCALAPPDATA (win), and stdout, so that they also appear in the terminal (& cron log).

After initial setup, the script takes care of everything: if your IP has changed since you last ran it, it will update your Dynamic DNS rule on domains.google.com.

If you forget your IP or need to check it for any reason, running:

python -m domains_api -i

...will log your current external IP to the terminal without doing anything else.

Other options include:

domains-api help manual (command line options):
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
You will need your autogenerated Dynamic DNS keys from
https://domains.google.com/registrar/example.com/dns
to create a user profile.

python -m domains_api                    || -run the script normally without arguments
python -m domains_api -h --help          || -show this help manual
python -m domains_api -i --ip            || -show current external IP address
python -m domains_api -c --credentials   || -change API credentials
python -m domains_api -e --email         || -email set up wizard > use to delete email credentials (choose 'n')
python -m domains_api -n --notifications || -toggle email notification settings > will not delete email address
python -m domains_api -d --delete_user   || -delete current user profile**
python -m domains_api -u user.file       || (or "--user_load path/to/user.file") -load user from pickle file**
                                         || **these options will remove any current user profile without warning!
                                         || **Backup "./.domains.user" file to store multiple profiles.

• *see changelog for very basic description of how to get this package working with Django/Apache2 and integrated into your application... more to come!

Change Log

0.1 - 0.1.2 (03/01/2020)

• First Release
• Code review from: https://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/254272/dynamic-dns-ip-checker-changer-for-google-domains-in-python

0.1.3 - 1.3.6 (04/01/2020)

• Updated GitHub url and long description / readme.
• Added option to show ip (only) from command line (domains_api -i --ip).
• Added test function to master branch: simulate change in ip (commented in main.py)
• Minor bugfixes

0.1.4 (05/01/2020)

• Fixed PermissionError when working with Apache2 & Django (must run script first as www-data e.g: "sudo -u www-data /venv/bin/python -m domains_api" - this will allow the apache server to be the owner of the log/user files when they are set up with least hassle. Missing this set the server will fail with an EOF error, as input is needed to initialize the first User instance. - bear in mind that running the script as a different user in the same environment will fail unless you change permissions on the log/user file located in the package directory)
• Fixed absolute paths in User.load_user() and User().save_user() functions.